Early career Radio at
Walt Disney World's
Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park Allen became an announcer for radio
KFAC in Los Angeles, then moved to the
Mutual Broadcasting System in 1946, talking the station into airing his five-nights-a-week comedy show
Smile Time, co-starring Wendell Noble. After Allen moved to CBS Radio's
KNX in Los Angeles, his music-and-talk half-hour format gradually changed to include more talk in an hour-long late-night format, boosting his popularity and creating standing-room-only studio audiences. During a show's segment, Allen went into the audience with a microphone to
ad lib on the air for the first time. This became a commonplace part of his studio performances for many years. His program attracted a huge local following; as the host of a 1950 summer replacement show for the popular comedy
Our Miss Brooks, he found himself in front of a national audience for the first time.
Television Allen's first television experience came in 1949, when he answered an advertisement for a television announcer for
professional wrestling. Knowing nothing about wrestling, he watched some shows to gain insight and discovered that the announcers did not have well-defined names for the
wrestling holds: when he got the job, he created names for many of the holds, some of which still are in use. He achieved national attention in early January 1951, when he was pressed into last-minute service to guest host the hugely popular ''
Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts'' when
Godfrey was unable to appear. He turned one of Godfrey's live
Lipton tea and soup commercials upside down, preparing tea and instant soup on camera, then pouring both into Godfrey's iconic ukulele. With the audience (including Godfrey, watching from Miami) laughing uproariously and thoroughly entertained, Allen gained major plaudits both as a comedian and as a host.
Jerry Lee Lewis, and
Fats Domino. Many popular television and film personalities were guest stars, including
Bob Hope,
Kim Novak,
Errol Flynn,
Abbott and Costello,
Esther Williams,
Jerry Lewis,
Martha Raye,
The Three Stooges,
Sammy Davis, Jr.,
Shelley Winters,
Edward Everett Horton, and a host of others. The show's regulars were
Tom Poston,
Louis Nye,
Bill Dana,
Don Knotts,
Pat Harrington, Jr.,
Dayton Allen, and
Gabriel Dell. Dell was the only show-business veteran, having appeared in the
Bowery Boys,
Dead End Kids,
Little Tough Guys, and
East Side Kids film series. Allen's other regulars were relatively obscure performers prior to their stints with Allen, and all went on to stardom. The comedians in Allen's gang often were seen in his "Man in the Street" interviews about some topical subject. Poston would appear as a dullard who could not remember his own name. Nye's character was an effete advertising executive named Gordon Hathaway, known for greeting the host with "Hi ho, Steverino!" Dana played amiable Latino "Jose Jimenez." Knotts was an exceedingly jittery man who, when asked if he was nervous, invariably replied with an alarmed "No!". Harrington was the Italian immigrant and former golf-pro Guido Panzini. Dayton Allen, who had gotten his start playing various characters on the children's television series "Howdy Doody," played wild-eyed zanies answering any given question with the question "Why not?" Dell usually played
straight men in sketches (policemen, newsmen, dramatic actors, etc.), and occasionally played the character Boris Nadel, a Bela Lugosi/Dracula lookalike. Other recurring routines included "Crazy Shots" (also known as "Wild Pictures"), a series of sight gags accompanied by Allen on piano; Allen inviting audience members to select three musical notes at random, and then composing a song based on the notes; a satire on radio's long-running
The Answer Man and a precursor to
Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent (sample answer: "Et tu, Brute." Allen's reply: "How many pizzas did you eat, Caesar?"); and overdramatic readings of real letters to the editor from New York City newspapers. Allen's show also had one of the longest unscripted "crack-ups" on live television when Allen began laughing hysterically during "Big Bill Allen's Sports Roundup". Allen, known for his infectious high-pitched cackling laugh, laughed uncontrollably for over a minute with the audience laughing along, because, as he later explained, he caught sight of his unkempt hair on an off-camera monitor. He kept brushing his hair and changing hats to hide the messy hair, and the more he tried to correct his appearance the messier and funnier it got. Allen helped the then-new
Polaroid camera become popular by demonstrating its instant-picture capabilities during live commercials and amassed a huge financial windfall for his work because he had opted to be paid for it in
Polaroid Corporation stock. Allen remained host of "Tonight" for three nights a week (Monday and Tuesday nights were taken up by guest hosts for most of the summer of 1956; then by
Ernie Kovacs through January) until early 1957 when he left the show to devote his attention to the Sunday night program. It was his (and NBC's) hope that
The Steve Allen Show could defeat Ed Sullivan in the ratings. Nevertheless,
Maverick often bested both in audience size. In September 1959, Allen relocated to Los Angeles and left Sunday night television (the 1959–'60 season originated from
NBC Color City in
Burbank as
The Steve Allen Plymouth Show, on Monday nights). Back in Los Angeles, he continued to write songs, hosted other variety shows, and wrote books and articles about comedy. After being canceled by NBC in 1960, the show returned in the fall of 1961—on
ABC, as
The New Steve Allen Show. Nye, Poston, Harrington, Dell, and Dayton Allen returned. New cast members were
Joey Forman,
Buck Henry, the
Smothers Brothers,
Tim Conway, and Allen's wife Jayne Meadows. The new version was canceled after fourteen episodes.
Later television projects Westinghouse From 1962 to 1964, Allen recreated
The Tonight Show on a new show,
The Steve Allen Show, which was syndicated by Westinghouse TV. The five-nights-a-week taped show was broadcast from an old vaudeville theater at 1228 North Vine Street in Hollywood that was renamed
The Steve Allen Playhouse. The new Allen show could be programmed by local stations as an alternative to the networks' late-night shows, but many stations opted to broadcast the Allen show during the daytime hours. The show was marked by the same wild, unpredictable stunts, and comedy skits that often extended across the side street to an all-night food outlet known as the Hollywood Ranch Market, where Allen had a hidden camera spying on unsuspecting shoppers. On one show, he had an elephant race down the side street, much to the annoyance of the occupants of the neighboring houses. On this show, he originated the term "little black things" in reference to anything regarding food, and the term "larger than Steve Allen's breadbox" in reference to any item under discussion. He also presented Southern California eccentrics, including health food advocate
Gypsy Boots, quirky physics professor Dr.
Julius Sumner Miller, wacko comic Professor
Irwin Corey, and an early musical performance by
Frank Zappa. During one episode, Allen placed a telephone call to the home of Johnny Carson, posing as a rating company interviewer, asking Carson if the television was on, and what program he was watching. Carson did not immediately realize the caller was Allen. A rarity is an exchange between Allen and Carson about Carson's guests, permitting him to plug his own show on a competing network. One notable program, which Westinghouse refused to distribute, featured
Lenny Bruce during the time the comic repeatedly was being arrested on obscenity charges. Footage from this program was first telecast in 1998 in a Bruce documentary aired on
HBO. The show also featured many jazz songs played by Allen and members of the show's band, the
Donn Trenner Orchestra, which included such virtuoso musicians as guitarist
Herb Ellis and flamboyantly comedic hipster trombonist
Frank Rosolino (whom Allen credited with originating the "Hiyo!" chant later popularized by
Ed McMahon). While the show was not an overwhelming success in its day,
David Letterman,
Steve Martin,
Harry Shearer,
Robin Williams, and a number of other prominent comedians have cited Allen's "Westinghouse show," which they watched as teenagers, as being highly influential on their own comedic visions. Allen later produced a second half-hour show for Westinghouse, titled
Jazz Scene USA, which featured West Coast jazz musicians such as Rosolino,
Stan Kenton, and
Teddy Edwards. The short-lived show was hosted by
Oscar Brown, Jr. Westinghouse opposed Allen's insertion of a non-comedic segment, "
Meeting of Minds", featuring actors playing historical figures engaged in serious and sometimes controversial discussion. However, Allen had creative control and insisted on its inclusion. When Westinghouse gave Allen an ultimatum to remove the segment he quit the show and was replaced by
Regis Philbin.
Network shows In 1964 Allen returned to network television as moderator of the game show ''
I've Got a Secret (replacing original host Garry Moore). In the summer of 1967, he brought most of the regulars from over the years back with The Steve Allen Comedy Hour
, featuring the television debuts of Rob Reiner, Richard Dreyfuss, and John Byner, and featuring Ruth Buzzi, who would become famous soon after on the comedy ensemble show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In''.
Filmways In 1968 Steve Allen returned to syndicated variety/talk with a new show for
Filmways, produced and co-written by Jeff Harris and Bernie Kukoff. The show was a free-wheeling, light-entertainment blend of comedy sketches, musical specialties, and conversation. It sometimes featured the same wacky stunts that would influence David Letterman in later years, including becoming a human
hood ornament, jumping into vats of
oatmeal and
cottage cheese, and being slathered with
dog food before allowing dogs backstage to feast on the food. During the run of this series, Allen also introduced
Albert Brooks and
Steve Martin to national audiences for the first time; Allen's talent coordinator for the Filmways show was
Bill Saluga, who himself became a TV personality in the 1970s as "Raymond J. Johnson, Jr." ("You can call me Ray! Or you can call me Jay!"). The Filmways show was offered to local stations in both 60-minute and 90-minute versions; during each taping, after an hour had passed, Allen simply said goodbye to part of his audience and continued the show for those stations using the longer version. This Filmways show ran through 1971.
In the 1970s Allen returned to guest host
The Tonight Show for a single 1971 episode, and then became a semi-occasional guest host (15 episodes) from 1973 to 1977. After another long layoff, he guest-hosted two episodes in 1982, the last time he would host
The Tonight Show. A syndicated version of ''I've Got A Secret
hosted by Allen and featuring panelists Pat Carroll and Richard Dawson was taped in Hollywood and aired during 1972–1973 season. In 1977, he produced Steve Allen's Laugh-Back'', a syndicated series combining vintage Allen film clips with new talk-show material reuniting his 1950s television gang.
Meeting of Minds From 1977 until 1981, Allen wrote, produced and hosted the award-winning show
Meeting of Minds, which aired on the
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The series brought together actors portraying historical figures such as
Socrates,
Marie Antoinette,
Thomas Paine, Sir
Thomas More,
Attila the Hun,
Karl Marx,
Emily Dickinson,
Charles Darwin,
Oliver Cromwell,
Daniel O'Connell,
Galileo, and many others, as if transported from the past, all in a round table discussion and sometimes arguments. The dialogue covered issues such as racism, women's rights, crime and punishment, slavery, and religious tolerance.
Jayne Meadows-Allen played most of the female characters, wisely eschewing Emily Dickinson, played by
Katherine Helmond, and the Empress Tz'u-hsi, played by
Beulah Quo.
Associated Press television columnist Peter Boyer called it the "best talk show on television", created by the person who "invented the television talk show", and added: Most of the female roles (Marie Antoinette,
Catherine the Great,
Florence Nightingale, et al.) were portrayed by Allen's wife, the actress
Jayne Meadows – over her objections. She resisted monopolizing these roles, but Allen was insistent. She recalled in 1994, "He came to me and he said, 'You're gonna play
Cleopatra.' I said, 'I am
not! Go away. Go away!' And he calmly said, 'It's a divorce if you don't play it.'" Allen first conceived the show in 1959 but took almost 20 years to make it become reality. The pilot aired but the series did not. In the same vein, Silverman tried to return Steve Allen to the network. He hired Allen for two primetime projects:
The Steve Allen Comedy Hour (1980), similar to Allen's 1950s variety hour, with comic characters and sketches; and
The Big Show (1980), an attempt to stage spectacular events for television. A third Silverman project got the green light: Allen would return to his roots as a late-night star, in a weeknight revival of
The Steve Allen Show. Silverman scheduled the hourlong show for five nights a week at 12:30 a.m. Eastern time, immediately following
The Tonight Show. Allen was excited about the opportunity, only to be disappointed: Johnny Carson opposed the plan and voiced his objections to Silverman. Silverman's own schedule of new NBC shows was failing (Allen's
Comedy Hour ran for only five episodes and
The Big Show for only eleven) and NBC couldn't afford to alienate Carson, the network's most important asset, so the new Steve Allen show was abandoned. From 1984 to 1986, Allen created and hosted ''Steve Allen's Music Room
which aired on the newly formed Disney Channel. This was a talk show with jazz vibraphonist Terry Gibbs leading a studio band with the top Los Angeles musicians to include Conte Candoli, Pete Candoli, Carl Fontana, Med Flory, Plas Johnson, Alan Broadbent, and drummer Frankie Capp. 27-year-old Bill Maher was the announcer and "sidekick." The show featured musicians and entertainers including Melba Moore, Joe Williams, Paul Williams, Burt Bacharach, Anthony Newley, Rosemary Clooney, Lou Rawls, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, and Henry Mancini. Allen spun off a similar show for Disney, Steve Allen's Comedy Room'', this time with professional comedians talking about comedy styles. From 1986 through 1988, for Allen hosted a daily, three-hour long comedy program, broadcast over the
NBC Radio Network, featuring sketches and some of America's better-known comedians as regular guests. Allen's co-host was radio personality Mark Simone, and they were joined frequently by comedy writers
Larry Gelbart, of
M*A*S*H writing fame;
Herb Sargent, best known for his writing for
Saturday Night Live, and
Bob Einstein, who created and portrayed the hapless daredevil stuntman character,
Super Dave Osborne. On October 30, 1988, Allen portrayed a radio newscaster in a remake of the famous
The War of the Worlds broadcast of fifty years earlier. The 1988 version was produced by
WGBH in Boston and picked up by 150
National Public Radio stations.
Songwriter According to his own estimate, Allen was a prolific songwriter who wrote more than 8,500 songs, although only a small fraction of them were ever recorded. In one famous stunt, he made a bet with singer-songwriter
Frankie Laine that he could write 50 songs a day for a week. Composing on public display in the window of Wallach's Music City, a Hollywood music store, Allen met the quota and won $1,000 from Laine. One of the songs, "Let's Go to Church (Next Sunday Morning)" became a chart hit for the duo of
Jimmy Wakely and
Margaret Whiting, hitting #13 pop and #2 country in 1950. Allen began his recording career in 1951 with the album
Steve Allen At The Piano for
Columbia Records. He then signed with
Decca Records, recording for their subsidiaries
Brunswick Records and then
Coral Records. Allen would release a mixture of novelty singles, jazz recordings and straight pop numbers for Decca throughout the 1950s, before switching to
Dot Records in the 1960s. In 1953 Allen added lyrics to "South Rampart Street Parade," a 1938 instrumental hit for
Bob Crosby, written by
Bob Haggart and
Ray Bauduc. The vocal was introduced in the
Donald O'Connor musical film
Walking My Baby Back Home (1953). Though the song is best known as an instrumental, Allen's lyrics are occasionally performed. Allen's best-known song, "
This Could Be the Start of Something (Big)", dates from 1954. Though it was never a hit, the song was recorded by numerous artists, including
Count Basie,
Tony Bennett,
Bobby Darin,
Ella Fitzgerald,
Mark Murphy Judy Garland,
Aretha Franklin,
Lionel Hampton,
Claire Martin, and
Oscar Peterson. Allen used it as the theme song of
The Tonight Show in 1956–57, and as the theme song to many of his later television projects. Allen wrote the lyrics for the standard "
Theme from Picnic" from the film
Picnic in 1955; the song was a No. 13 U.S. hit in a vocal version for The
McGuire Sisters in 1956. The song, however, is chiefly remembered as an instrumental, often performed in a medley with "
Moonglow," a popular song from 1933. Two instrumental versions charted in the U.S. top 5 in 1956, including a No. 1 hit version by
Morris Stoloff. Because he did not write the music, Allen was not credited as a songwriter on the instrumental versions. In 1957,
Jerry Vale had a minor hit (US #52) with the Allen composition "Pretend You Don't See Her". The song was later covered by
Bobby Vee, who would also chart with it (US #97) in 1965, and Vale's recording would later be heard in the 1990 gangster film
GoodFellas. "Gravy Waltz" was composed and originally performed by
Ray Brown as an instrumental in the early 1960s. Allen later set words to it, and the collaboration won the 1964
Grammy Award for Best Original Jazz Composition. Issued as an instrumental single in 1963, it hit No. 64 on the US Billboard charts. Though the single version was credited to "Steve Allen With Donn Trenner And His Orchestra," Allen did not play on it. As well, though Allen was credited as co-songwriter for his lyrics, the hit single version was strictly an instrumental performance. In the realm of theatre, Allen wrote the music and lyrics for the Broadway musical
Sophie, which was based on the early career of the woman long billed as "The Last of the Red-Hot Mamas," entertainer
Sophie Tucker. The book for the show was by Philip Pruneau.
Libi Staiger and
Art Lund were featured in the leading roles. "Sophie" opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York, after tryouts in three other cities, on April 15, 1963, to mostly unfavorable critical notices. It closed five days later, on April 20, after just eight performances. As
Ken Mandelbaum noted in his 1991 book
Not Since Carrie: The show received consistently negative reviews in Columbus, Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York, and its problems were obvious: a cliché-ridden standard show-biz bio book, and an ordinary score ... The score went unrecorded (by the cast), although several months later Judy Garland sang three songs from
Sophie on her CBS television series. Though Mandelbaum doesn't mention it, Allen was a guest on that episode of
The Judy Garland Show in which she featured Allen's songs from
Sophie. Later, a "compiled" recording of
Sophie was released with vocals by Allen, Libi Staiger, Garland, and others. Allen's other produced musical was the 1969 London show
Belle Starr, which starred
Betty Grable as the American West character. Allen wrote the music, and was one of three credited lyricists.
Belle Starr also received poor reviews in both its Glasgow tryout and in its London run, and closed after 12 performances. Like
Sophie, the score went unrecorded by the cast. No compiled recording of the score has been made. Allen also composed the score to
Paul Mantee's
James Bond–inspired film
A Man Called Dagger (1967), with the score orchestrated by
Ronald Stein. By the 1970s, Allen was no longer actively recording his music. He continued to compose material, however, and in 1985, Allen wrote 19 songs for
Irwin Allen's television mini-series
Alice in Wonderland. The series starred his wife
Jayne Meadows as the Queen of Hearts, among dozens of other celebrities. After a long layoff from recording, in 1992 Allen issued the instrumental album
Steve Allen Plays Jazz Tonight, which included interpretations of jazz classics as well as a handful of new original compositions. In total he had 3 charting albums,
Music for Tonight, (1955,
Coral, No. 7 on
Billboard's Top Albums chart), Funny Fone-Calls, (1963,
Dot, No. 70 on the
Billboard Top LPs) and Gravy Waltz & 11 Current Hits, (1963,
Dot, No. 41 on the
Billboard Top LPs).
Allen and rock music While Allen often was critical of
rock and roll music, he also often booked rock and roll acts on his television program
The Steve Allen Show. It featured such acts as
Fats Domino,
Jerry Lee Lewis,
Louis Jordan & the
Tympany Five,
the Treniers, and
the Collins Kids. Allen famously scooped
Ed Sullivan by being one of the first to present
Elvis Presley on network television (after Presley had appeared on the
Tommy and
Jimmy Dorsey Stage Show and
Milton Berle shows). While Presley was an exceedingly controversial act at the time, "Allen found a way ... to satisfy the Puritans. He assured viewers that he would not allow Presley 'to do anything that will offend anyone.' NBC announced that a 'revamped, purified and somewhat abridged Presley' had agreed to sing while standing reasonably still, dressed in black tie." Allen avoided any controversy by inviting Presley to participate in the show's comedy. Elvis wore
white tie and
tailcoat while singing "
Hound Dog" to a
hound, which was attired with a top hat. The singer was also featured in a country-music sketch with Allen,
Andy Griffith, and
Imogene Coca. Allen also appeared on the shows of other entertainers, even the mildly rock and roll program
The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom on ABC; Boone had appeared as a guest on Allen's variety hour.
Actor Allen was an occasional actor. He wrote and starred in his first film, the
Mack Sennett comedy compilation
Down Memory Lane, in 1949; Allen cast himself as a "TV disc jockey" showing Sennett's old comedy films on live television. His most famous film appearance was in 1956's
The Benny Goodman Story, in the title role. The film, while an average biopic of its day, was hailed for its music, featuring many alumni of the Goodman band. Allen later recalled his one contribution to the film's music, used in the early scenes. The accomplished Benny Goodman no longer could produce the sound of a clarinet beginner, and that was the only sound Allen
could produce on a clarinet. In 1960, he appeared as the character "Dr. Ellison" in the episode "Play Acting" on
CBS's
anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson though his
The Steve Allen Show had been in competition with the program the preceding season. Allen sometimes appeared as himself (or as thinly disguised versions of himself) as a TV host in feature films (like
The Comic) and TV shows (
Batman and
The Snoop Sisters). During the late 1980s, Allen and
Jayne Meadows, his second wife, made three appearances on the television drama series
St. Elsewhere. They played the estranged birth parents of the character Dr. Victor Ehrlich, who had given him up for adoption. And, in 1998, Allen and Meadows guest-starred in an episode of
Homicide: Life on the Street. Allen did voice work in two episodes of
The Simpsons in the 1990s, appearing once as the electronically "altered" voice of
Bart Simpson in
season 3's "
Separate Vocations", and as himself in
season 6's
'Round Springfield". In 1997, Allen was a guest on the
Space Ghost Coast to Coast episode "Boat Show."
Author Allen was a comedy writer and author of more than 50 books, including several volumes of autobiography; children's books; a series of mystery novels; and numerous volumes of essays and opinions. Twenty of his books were concerned with his views about religion. and the California-based group
The Skeptics Society. He wrote many pieces for their publication,
Skeptic, on such topics as the
Church of Scientology, genius, and the passing of science fiction giant
Isaac Asimov. Working with
Paul Kurtz, publisher of
Prometheus Books, Allen published 15 books, including
Dumbth: The Lost Art of Thinking with 101 Ways to Reason Better and Improve Your Mind, which was reissued in 1998. He produced ''Gullible's Travels
, an audiotape with original music and script that was read and sung by him and his wife "in order to introduce youngsters to the brain and its proper use." Wishing to counter the influence of the American Christian right, Allen wrote both a 1990 critique of the Bible (Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion and Morality'') as well as a sequel. A sample passage from the book that illustrated his view of the
Judeo-Christian-Islamic God reads: The proposition that the entire human race — consisting of enormous hordes of humanity — would be placed seriously in danger of a fiery eternity characterized by unspeakable torments purely because a man disobeyed a deity by eating a piece of fruit offered him by his wife is inherently incredible.
Activities in later years In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Allen recorded a solo piano album for the Pianocorder Contemporary Artists Series, joining such other pop pianists of the day as
Liberace,
Floyd Cramer,
Teddy Wilson,
Roger Williams, and
Johnny Guarnieri. His solo album was popular. In 1986, Allen was inducted into the
Television Hall of Fame. Allen was on the advisory board of the
Los Angeles Student Film Institute. Allen appeared in a public service announcement advocating for
New Eyes for the Needy in the 1990s. Steve Allen had last guest-hosted
The Tonight Show in 1982, and made his last appearance on it on September 27, 1994, for the show's 40th-anniversary broadcast. Host
Jay Leno was effusive in his praise, and actually knelt and kissed Allen's ring. Allen also narrated
The Unreal Story of Professional Wrestling, a documentary of professional wrestling from its origins to 1998. == Personal life ==